1. Field of the Invention
The invention relates generally to cell scheduling in Asynchronous Transfer Mode (ATM) networks, and more specifically to time-wheel cell scheduling in ATM networks.
2. Background Art
Reference is now made to FIG. 1 of the drawings, showing a simple prior art time-wheel scheduler. A number of queues 10 are organized in a round queue of queues 12. Each queue 10 contains zero or more Virtual Channel (VC) entries 14 to be transmitted. Two time pointers are employed to control the operation of the scheduler: a time pointer 16 and a transmission pointer 18. The time pointer 16 advances clockwise from one queue 10 to the next queue 10 every cell time, indicating that all VC entries 14 in the queues 10 behind it are to be transmitted as soon as possible. The transmission pointer 18 either lags behind or steps together with time pointer 16, indicating which queue 10 is currently being serviced. Scheduling is typically done by an external manager (not shown in the drawings) which is responsible for placing VC entries 14 in queues 10.
Simple time-wheel cell schedulers, as the one depicted in FIG. 1, have several limitations: first, complex computations are required every time transmission pointer 18 reaches a new queue, even if the queue is empty. As a result of the need for calculation, the total number of queues that can be implemented is also limited. Further, the limitation on the number of queues also limits the minimum bandwidth and the bandwidth resolution that can be assigned to a VC. Any changes to the number or the attributes of the VCs require complex calculations to be redone to determine the fixed entries in the queues.
There is a need for an easy-to-implement method for constant bit rate (CBR) and variable bit rate (VBR) cell scheduling with high resolution of bandwidth and the ability to support a large number of VCs.